Bad Santa 2

Starring: Billy Bob Thornton, Kathy Bates, Tony Cox, Christina Hendricks, Brett Kelly, Ryan Hansen, Octavia Spencer, Cristina Rosato
Directed by: Mark Waters
Rating: R
Genre: Comedy
2016

Times Seen:
Tim: 1

Summary: Willie (Billy Bob Thornton) and Marcus (Tony Cox) team up once again to pull off another Christmas heist.

Review:

Tim: I was very disappointed with the overrated Bad Santa, so I certainly wasn't clamoring for this unnecessary sequel, 13 years after the original. I went into it with an open mind, but I wasn't expecting much. This is probably a better film than the first one in many ways, but that being said, it's still a pretty crummy comedy.

The first movie had a number of behind-the-scenes issues, which I believe contributed to the lack of quality in the final film. It doesn't feel like the original had any kind of unifying vision, so it's this scattered, one trick movie. The joke wears off very quickly and we're left suffering through the rest of the movie. This sequel was bad, but it resolved some of the issues of the original. The biggest boon to this film is the addition of Willie's mother to the story. Not only is she brilliantly played by Kathy Bates, but it gives Willie more background, more of a reason to care about his character. We understand him better in relation to his mother. It helped ground the character and gave us a different look at him. It made a huge difference in the film.

That being said, most of the rest of the film is about what you'd expect from this sequel. More of the foulmouthed, vulgarity that we expect from Willie and his friends. The plot feels a little more intricate this time around, but but they go to the same well for the desired laughs. Like the first film, outside of a few humorous moments, I didn't really find this film all that funny. Any yet, it comes across like everything you see is hilarious. It's this odd feeling of a movie not being nearly as funny as it thinks it is. I don't know, it's hard to have much enjoyment watching this.

Billy Bob Thornton is good, for the most part. There's no one better at playing these beaten-down-by-life, despicable people. I'm not sure what it is in him that allows him to be so great at these roles, but it's fun seeing a guy who just does not care about anyone or anything. As mentioned, Kathy Bates is perhaps the highlight of the film. She's hilarious and delivers a good performance. I loved her interactions with Thornton. Tony Cox is fine one again. Christina Hendricks didn't add as much to the film as I would have liked. Brett Kelly was fun to see, just since he's all grown up (and hasn't changed as much as you'd expect). Overall, the cast is fine, but not a big selling point.

Like the first time around, there's really no characters to like. That always creates this weird sensation- we know the movie wants us to care about what happens on screen, by why should we? We need to identify with the characters to accomplish that. The introduction of Willie's dysfunctional mom certainly helps us understand him better (which is huge), but we still don't really care about Willie nearly enough. Outside of the relationship dynamic with this mother, there's not much for us to invest in.

I really didn't care for Bad Santa 2 at all. However, the few changes they made did make this a better film than the first one. Still, when you're this low on the movie scale, while improvement is appreciated, these films have a long, long way to go.

Rating 1-10
Tim's Rating: 4.5



If You Enjoyed This Movie, We Recommend: Bad Santa, Bad Moms, Bad Teacher